2025 Trip to Liberia Travel Log – Day 5
Traffic is difficult to describe in the Monrovia metropolitan area, where about half of the population of the country lives, about 2.5 million people. There are no freeways. There are more potholes than St. Paul, Minnesota streets and this might be hard to believe, but the potholes are much larger (no pavement for almost a block) and deeper. At what size does a pothole become something else - and what would we call it? Perhaps a crater? We have scraped bottom multiple times as we dive into a pothole or climb out the other side. Owen, our driver, will come to nearly a complete stop and then slowly drop the front end into the pothole and then very carefully find the best place on the other side to exit. Never mind if the "best place" is over on the "wrong" side of the road,
Then you add in the motor bikes and the "KK's" buzzing about filling every available sliver of space and the occasional pedestrian darting out from behind a vehicle. Maybe it could be a video game? Maybe the real thing is sporting enough. "KK's" are the 3 wheel vehicles pictured above. Owen keeps Jeff and I and everyone else attentive by honking his horn. I am sure he honks the horn more in 5 minutes than I have in my entire life.
Having said this, I have seen only one fender-bender during our visit. I get nervous when I think he is going way too fast but when I look over and he is going between 30 and 40 miles per hour. I must be getting used to it because I took a short nap on the 90 minute ride back to the hotel this afternoon. Owen obviously knows what he is doing!
We distributed the gift bags to the students today. Starting with preschool all the way to the senior class. Each time we walked into a room the students stood and said a welcome message in unison. All the kids were well behaved and polite while we distributed the bags and always thanked us for these small gifts of crayons, pencils, pens and candy.
We had a "working lunch" in Pastor Sylvester's office as we discussed goals and projects for the next 1-3 years for the school, church and clinic. His vision is large and will take many years to fulfill. His wife, Younger, once again prepared a delicious meal of rice and fish in a cassava and onion sauce.
As the saying goes - everything you need to know you learned in Kindergarten - so we decided to observe a kindergarten class. The kindergarten class size is kept to about 12 kids which allows the teacher to have great interaction and control of the room. I was impressed how well these kids knew their numbers, alphabet, the sound of each letter (phonics) and ability to spell and read small words. Each student had time to come up to the board to complete what the teacher asked of them. They all were able to complete what was asked and each received a round of applause from the entire class when successfully completing their task.
After school adjourned for the day we drove over to the offices of Church AID, Inc. They are leading the charge for Ear & Hearing Care in Liberia. We met with Bishop Kortu K. Brown, the CEO, to discuss the pending Rotary Global Grant that we are working on together. The project, when approved, will provide ear & hearing test equipment to seven hospitals in Liberia. We also discussed plans to raise awareness of ear and hearing health issues in observance of World Hearing Day on March 3rd. Activities include hearing screening at 11 schools, radio talk shows, parades and presentations by UNICEF and others.
Pictured above are Bishop Brown, Reverend Miatta Sirleaf, Nurse Georgia and Nurse Naomi, with Don and Jeff as bookends.
You may have noticed I am wearing my MobilePack t-shirt for the occasion to promote the "Where in the world has the All Hands On Hope shirt traveled to?". I understand this is going to help with our All Hands on Hope MobilePack at Incarnation. But only if Sally has the patience to explain to me how to get it posted correctly on my Instagram account.
We got back to the hotel in the nick of time for a zoom meeting back in Minnesota and a shared pizza on the deck. Tomorrow we are headed back to the school and a reception at Church Aid, Inc. with 5 of the 8 nurses that were trained as Hearing Instrument Specialists at the Starkey Hearing Institute in Zambia.